Soup. What to say about soup? Well first of all I can’t believe this is the first soup recipe I am posting on this site. I had to go back and double check because I couldn’t quite believe it. Soup has played a big role in my life. I cooked soup daily for a few years at my brother’s restaurant and for nutrition clients, I did recipe development for a local company that was creating a line of soups and I even hosted a few soup nights where I cooked up a big pot of soup and had friends over to share. Oh and I cooked minestrone soup with 60 kids every Wednesday with Project CHEF for a few years where I came home smelling of soup from head to toe.

Needless to say we eat a lot of soup in the fall and winter months. It is simple to make, comforting on a cold day and I can usually pull one off with whatever I have in the fridge. But for something so simple, there really is a lot of bad soup out there. I think the key to good soup is starting with flavourful ingredients (good veggies) and using good quality homemade stock, be it vegetable or chicken.

I remembered making a good celeriac and potato soup last year, of course no record of that recipe. So I set out to create one yesterday and to take the time to write down the ingredients so I could share it with you.

This soup is very simple and comforting and all about the garnishes. I find it is often the garnishes that take a soup from being good to being great. So here I added some toasted walnuts and a crumble of blue cheese for added depth and a little crunch and saltiness.

It is certainly the weather for soup. I do hope you give this one a try.

Oh and on a different note, I am excited to announce that the first issue of Bread and Butter Magazine, the food magazine I have been working on, will be online on Thursday here. Nothing goes better with soup than bread and butter.

Happy cooking!

Celeriac Apple and Potato Soup

Serves 3-4

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 small leek, sliced

1 small yellow onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 celeriac, peeled and cubed (about 1 1/2 pound before peeling)

2 medium apples, peeled and cubed

1 pound yellow flesh potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 tsp fresh thyme, finely chopped

1 1/2 tsp salt

5-6 cups vegetable or chicken stock (if using store bought you will need less salt)

1/4 cup chopped roasted walnuts

a small piece of crumbly mild blue cheese

Heat a soup pot over medium heat. Add the butter, once it is melted add the leek and onion and cook until they are soft and beginning to get slightly golden. Add the garlic, celeriac, apple, potato, thyme and salt. Cook for another 3-5 minutes. Once the vegetables have a bit of colour, add the stock. Turn the heat up to high and bring the soup to a boil. Once at a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook the soup for 15 – 20 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

Blend the soup with an immersion blender until smooth. Serve topped with toasted walnuts, a crumble of blue cheese and a little fresh chopped thyme.

My apologies for the lack of activity and recipes happening here. I was so busy enjoying one of the best summers on record and being a new auntie to the sweetest little man ever I didn’t stop to document recipes or take photos with my camera. This photo was captured at the tail end of summer at Cropthorne Farm.

We are now well into fall and Thanksgiving is just days away. My favourite meal of the year. There is nothing like the first big harvest meal of the season.

I intend to get back in the groove of sharing more photos, recipes and images here in the coming months. A lot of my creative energy has been devoted to a new project I am most excited about. I am starting a food magazine with two dear and talented friends called Bread and Butter Magazine. We are in the final stretch of getting our first edition together and it is all very exciting. I can’t wait to share what we have been up to over the last many months. The first edition will be available online but it is our goal and dream to move to print.

I also shot some photos recently of my dear friend Julie in her beautiful kitchen making orecchiette and tomato sugo. Recipes and photos are on her site Kitchen Culinaire.

I just wanted to take a quick moment to update you on what I have been up to and to wish all my Canadian friends a very Happy Thanksgiving. I am so thankful to be a part of an amazing local food community, to know personally many of the people who grow the food that nourishes me on a daily basis and to have so many creative and talented people in my life that I call friends.

I hope you have the chance to share good food around the table with loved ones this weekend.

Sweet, sweet summer always passes in a flash. It is a funny time of year, as I am beyond excited about all of the incredible food that is in season and yet I am so busy enjoying it all that I don’t stop to document and share it here. I do manage to capture much of it with a quick snap on my phone over on Instgram. It is also a case of not really using recipes during these months.

Summer is all about simplicity, picnics, picking berries, dips in the ocean and laying on a blanket under a big tree. We eat sliced tomatoes with a drizzle of good olive oil, a scattering of fresh basil and sprinkle of flaked salt, apricots baked with a bit of honey and vanilla, ice cream, salmon on the bbq or a late summer succotash with butter, corn, fresh herbs and whatever bits are in the fridge. Delicious for sure but hardly worthy of a recipe.

As far as summers go, we have had one of the best ones I can remember. It has been week after week of beautiful sunshine. All this warmth means it has been a great growing season. Every time I turn around the cucumbers in my garden have doubled in size and the fruit has been off the charts sweet and juicy. I am hauling home boxes of peaches and apricots to preserve for the winter. I spent the afternoon yesterday picking blackberries with a friend and her girls. The day ended with big purple smiles and blackberries in the freezer.